Acquisitions Tab in Google Analytics and what it means for you

You may have noticed in the last day that the TRAFFIC Sources Tab has changed name and added a few new reports to the Google Analytics experience.

According to Google Traffic sources in Google Analytics contains some of the most popular reports and are accessed daily by millions of users.

That’s why it was decided to add a few new key metrics to serve some of the most important elements for most users of analytics. Acquisitions.

Two new sub tabs join the freshly named Acquisition tab in Google Analytics

1) Acquisition Overview quick summary view of traffic acquisition

2) Channels Report detailed view on a per channel basis

A more intuitive Overview report

The new overview report in the acquisition section is designed to provide you will a end to end view of how your business is operation giving you insights into how you are acquiring users, how they behave and who converts. By default, the Overview report shows you relative performance broken down by acquisition channels (more on that below). Use this report to get a quick look at:

Which channels acquire the most users

Which channels acquire users who engage most with your site

Which channels acquire users who result in the most conversions

Introducing channels

Channels allow you to view your traffic acquisition at a higher level of granularity, allowing you to group similar sources using rules into logical buckets we call channels. By default all users will be pre-setup with eight channels; you can choose to customize and add more at anytime.

Channels are now a first class entity in all of analytics and will be made available in custom reports and the API soon. They are also shared across users of the same profile.

Editing the Channels

You can edit the Channels to define new channels, remove existing channels, and change channel definitions. The default Channel Grouping uses system-generated definitions for each channel. For example:

System Defined Channel exactly matches Direct

System Defined Channel exactly matches Referral

The system definitions are proprietary, and reflect Analytics’ current view of what constitutes each channel. While you cannot edit any of the system definitions, you can configure new rules to define a channel. For example, you can change the definition of the Social channel:

From:

System Defined Channel exactly matches Social

To:

Source contains plus.google.com|twitter.com

This is big news as once again a simplified snap shot can be viewed and digested quickly and key decision makers or marketing teams can see direct correlation between different traffic mediums and how to better improve the yield.

How is the new Acquisition tab going to help you improve your business? Leave comments below.

About me

Hi, I'm Phillip Parisis and welcome to my blog where you will find the latest in digital marketing and conversion rate optimisation strategies that work. I'm a digital strategist from way back helping businesses and start-ups grow. I'm experienced, results-driven, innovative, unique and a lover of dogs and fashion.